saw in her eyes; they were depthless, mysterious, had the peculiar quality of looking at me and yet at the same time beyond me to...somewhere.
“You are Richard Shaw, my husband, aren’t you?” she asked me in level tones.
I stared at her. “Well of course I am!” I answered in amazement. “Of all the extraordinary questions!”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Since we have been parted from each other so long I thought it as well to make sure.”
Just for a moment I wondered if this was one of her mischievous tricks, then her utterly impassive expression convinced me otherwise. She had meant every word in all seriousness.
“I believe,” Dr. Mason said, glancing at her, then at me, “that Mrs. Shaw is still suffering from the effects of the accident—”
“Nothing of the kind!” Beryl interrupted. “You made a thorough examination of me this morning and pronounced me quite fit to be discharged. You must remember it.”
“Yes,” Mason admitted. “That is true.”
He looked at her for a moment as though trying to make up his mind about something, then he turned back to me again. “In accordance with your wishes, Mr. Shaw, I have had all the necessary arrangements made. Your car—repaired now I understand—is in the Crossways Garage. I had your home contacted and your housekeeper is expecting you and Mrs. Shaw today. A taxi will be here shortly at three o’clock. In fact,” Mason added, glancing through the window, “I believe it is here now.”
He got to his feet and pressed a button. A porter came and took away the bags, retrieved from the car, then Beryl looked at me expectantly and rose from her chair. Without so much as a word of farewell or thanks to Mason she followed the porter from the room. It was so unlike her usual graciousness I just couldn’t understand it.
“I must apologize for her, Doctor,” I said worriedly. “I’ve no idea why she is behaving like this. She seems to have forgotten everyday manners.”
“And yet she reacted perfectly to every psychological test we gave her. So it isn’t a peculiar form of amnesia....” Mason’s craggy face became thoughtful for a moment; then finally he shrugged. “She’s the queerest patient I have ever known.”
I shook the big hand he held out to me and he saw me to the door. Beryl was seated in the back of the taxi, waiting for me.
“He wants to know where we’re going,” she said, nodding to the driver. “Since I don’t know you’d better tell him.”
“But, Berry, you know where my home is: you’ve been to it many a time. Whatever’s the matter with your memory?”
“Suppose you tell him where to go and stop bothering about my memory?”
I hesitated for a moment, then turned to the driver:
“Keep on going until you get to the village, then I’ll direct you from there.”
He nodded and closed the door upon us when I had settled beside Beryl. Soon we were speeding down the Sanatorium driveway and so out into the main road.
We had covered five miles and gone right past that fateful spot where we had had the collision before Beryl seemed to think it necessary to speak again, and then her words only served to deepen the confusion in my mind.
“What are we going to do with our lives from now on, Richard Shaw?”
“Did—did you call me—Richard Shaw?” I whispered.
“Yes, of course. That’s your name, isn’t it?”
I caught at her hand and held it tightly.
“Listen, Berry, if this is some kind of a joke you are trying to keep up for God’s sake bring it to an end right now. I’ve had every bit as much as I can stand! Richard Shaw indeed! I’m Dick to you, and always have been, just as you are Berry to me.”
The absurdity of having to explain such a thing to her did not occur to me at the moment. Actually I think I believed at that time that she definitely was a victim of some kind of brain trouble. And yet she did not look vague—anything but it. Her blue eyes were fixed on me, gazing, not exactly at me, but through me, to something beyond....
“All right,” she said presently, “It’s Dick from now on. But I still want to know what we are going to do with our lives. What does one usually do?”
This was about the limit! I was beginning to think of myself as a teacher forced to instruct a grown woman with the brain of a child. What a task for a newly-married husband who had been looking forward to wedded bliss!
“You really mean you don’t know—or at any rate can’t remember—how we are to live?” I asked incredulously.
“I mean just that, yes. Why do you take so long to answer?”
“Because it’s such a damned impossible thing to realize!” I retorted. “Anyway we are going to live together ‘until death us do part,’ else we run into such intolerable circumstances that we decide to part legally from each other.”
“I understand we are going to live in your house?” she asked after a while.
“Right,” I assented. “You’ll soon get your health back there. There will be plenty of people about to keep you from getting depressed—”
“I don’t like people,” she interrupted. “In fact I don’t think your home is going to suit me for a moment. I want somewhere quiet and undisturbed, where the only interruptions are those we make ourselves.”
“You want quiet!” I exclaimed. “Berry, to me you just aren’t the same girl. Why, until the accident your one joy in life was the company of other people. You just lived on thrills, went the round of the shows. This new attitude is beyond my understanding.”
“Don’t forget that I’ve been ill,” she said—but I felt somehow that she was only using this for an excuse. “It’s only natural that I should want rest and quiet—”
She broke off and pointed suddenly through the window.
“There! That’s the kind of place I mean!”
I looked quickly as the taxi went speeding along the main road, and for a moment I had a glimpse of a massive, detached house, extremely old-fashioned in the Georgian style, lying well back in its own grounds. Slanting lopsidedly over the untidy hedge was a notice board “FOR SALE,” but we were going too fast for me to get the name of the agent.
“That would be marvelous!” Beryl breathed, looking back through the rear window. “So quiet...so restful!”
She swung round to me with the first show of emotion she had revealed so far.
“Dick, I want that place!” she said abruptly.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I promised, but all the same I made up my mind that I wouldn’t even refer to it again unless she did. Its very appearance had given me the creeps....
She
